


Spare Parts

by lesbianettes



Series: Spare Parts [1]
Category: 9-1-1 (TV)
Genre: (Ish) - Freeform, Abandonment, Car Accidents, Fear, Gratuitous use of italics, Hurt Evan "Buck" Buckley, Idiots in Love, M/M, Mechanics, Overheating, Robot!Buck, Self-Harm, Trauma, glitching, robot!au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-18
Updated: 2021-02-18
Packaged: 2021-03-14 05:47:10
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,379
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29537730
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lesbianettes/pseuds/lesbianettes
Summary: Evan Buckley is an end-of-life caretaking robot. He doesn't keep the job very long
Relationships: Eddie Diaz/Evan "Buck" Buckley, Evan "Buck" Buckley/Eddie Diaz
Series: Spare Parts [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2170023
Comments: 13
Kudos: 110





	Spare Parts

_ Servers coming online… _

_ Processing… _

_ Processing… _

_ Evan Buckley v1.1 coming online… _

_ Processing…  _

_ Online. _

Evan opens his eyes for the very first time. His vision is overlaid with code for a moment, his system absolutely overwhelmed with the amount of information coming in all at once. He takes in a living room that his system says is plain but well-loved, and the person in front of him is considered attractive. Her face is symmetrical, with blue eyes and red hair, and she’s middle aged. He doesn’t know her name. He scans his servers, and one of them pulls up her driver’s license in the corner of his vision. 

“Abigail Clark,” he says.

His voice is rough and a little squeaky, like it’s in need of a good oiling. There are gears inside him, he thinks, though when he studies his body with his eyes he finds skin on it. There’s no hair on his body except for his head and eyebrows- which he feels to confirm- but there are little things like moles and freckles that make him seem more like a human than a robot, which is what he is. 

_ “Evan Buckley v1.01 of the Buckley line of Southern California Solutions,”  _ he says, but that voice is not his own. It’s a woman’s voice. “ _ Evan Buckley is an end-of-life caretaking robot. Evan Buckley is a prototype.” _

“Yes, you are,” Abigail Clark answers. She reaches out to touch him and he flinches away. The feel of her hand on his face is too much information, too much input, and it makes his whole body light up like the summer sun, hot and blazing. He knows what the sun feels like, but he has never seen it. Evan 1.0 must have. He does not remember Evan 1.0. “Come meet my mother.”

Her mother is an old woman with Alzheimer’s, who Evan does recognize the same way he recognizes the sun. While he cannot place where this information came from, he’s glad he has it, just as he’s relieved his programming commands his body to go through the motions. He fetches Patricia water and sits at her bedside, waiting. 

Waiting.

There is nothing in him that knows what to do besides take care of this woman, so he stays there until Abigail Clark snaps her fingers to get his attention. It’s loud. He turns down his auditory processors and stares at her, waiting for instruction. 

“I want you to make us dinner.”

“Yes, Abigail Clark.”

One of his servers finds recipes while his main computer carries him to the kitchen to see what food is available. He doesn’t think he could handle going to the store, or if Abigail Clark would even let him do so. 

“You can call me Abby,” Abby clarifies. 

“Abby,” he repeats, filing away the information for later. She smiles at him and he copies the gesture, but it pulls at his skin wrong and all he can do is drop the expression and get started making dinner for her. 

This is the first dinner he makes for her. 

After this night, he makes dinner every single time, while Abby sits on the couch with her feet up and Patricia watches her soaps on the TV. Abby doesn’t like what her mother watches, but Evan’s programming is to make Patricia happy, not Abby. He always puts them on when Abby leaves for work. Of course, Evan does not watch the television, in part because all the bright colors and loud noises are too overwhelming for his newborn artificial brain, 

He learns which wines Abby likes and what grocery app to order from, because he is not permitted outside the house. Most bots cannot leave their assigned homes, and he is no exception as a caretaker. This house is the boundary of his world. When he reaches an arm out the front door to pick up the groceries, it sends a painful tingle up his circuits, but there is no alternative. Groceries are his duty. 

Evan thinks he is a good caretaker. Abby tells him that her mother is happier, and she sighs when he gives her massages after long shifts at the dispatch center, and he keeps the house spotless. Most mornings, after he cleans, he can see his reflection in the floor. Abby removed the mirrors from his places of access- leaving one locked up in her bedroom, where he is not permitted- according to manufacturer instructions. 

_ It is not safe for any Bot to see themselves. This overloads their servers. Do not look in the mirror. Do not look in the mirror. Evan Buckley, do not look in the mirror. _

But he sneaks peeks at his reflection in the floor and studies the angle of his jaw, the shape of his eyes. The reflection is muddy colored like the wood, and a little wavy from its warp, so it is not a true reflection of what he looks like. For this reason, he believes, it does not overload his servers, and he is free from fear of being rebooted into Evan Buckley 1.2, or even Evan Buckley 2.0, with all of his memories gone. 

Evan learns he likes the taste of chocolate, though he cannot consume it, so he orders himself small bars in the weekly groceries and lets it melt on his tongue before spitting the whole thing out into the sink and scrubbing it down. It is one of the few sensations that he can manage without feeling overwhelmed. 

After six months, Patricia Clark passes away. Evan pronounces her dead and calls 911 before he calls Abby, which leads to the body being taken away before Abby comes home. He can tell she is upset with him. 

“Fucking idiot!” she shouts at him. 

He flinches. He doesn’t like loud noises. Evan tries to placate her, but every word only angers her, until she shoves him and he falls to the ground, his head bouncing on the hard flooring. No reflection today. There is a new dent in the back of his skull and his computer is panicking. 

_ System damaged. System damaged.  _

_ Reboot. _

_ Rebooting… _

_ Rebooting… _

_ Servers coming online… _

_ Processing…. _

_ Evan Buckley v2.0 coming online… _

_ Processing… _

_ Processing… _

_ Processing… _

_ Online.  _

He sits up. Abby is staring at him. He has his memories intact, but he has been updated. She changed something. He opens his mouth to ask what was done but she tells him to shut up. He listens. She ushers him to his feet as he feels the back of his skull for the dent. It’s gone. His servers also tell him it’s been nearly four days since he started the reboot. She may have sent him to a repair shop, but none of that is as important as her opening the door and trying to shove him out of it. 

“No, Abby, please,” he begs. 

Evan has never been outside except to get the groceries, and such a thing had been excruciating. She is immune to him, however, and successfully removes him to her front porch. The sun is too bright and the world too loud, but he cannot cover his eyes and ears at the same time. If he could breathe, he would be hyperventilating. Instead, his internal servers are heating up with all the information to process. 

Suddenly he processes that he does not feel pain. 

The update removed his geographical bounds. 

He has been abandoned. 

He looks around him, ears covered, at the world. He’ll likely be recognized as a Bot, and without a home or a job, he’ll be sold for scrap. There’s enough human in him to be afraid of such a thing, and so he makes the decision then and there that he must try and pass as a human. That means not telling anyone his real name, because his only name is that of the line of Bots he comes from. He’s the Evan Buckley. Also available are the Maddie Buckley, Daniel Buckley, Margaret Buckley, and Philip Buckley in this line. He’s never met the others, but he has information on them in his server designed to help him sell them if asked. The Daniel Buckley has been discontinued. The Maddie Buckley is a home healthcare assistant, and the Margaret and Philip Buckley are for childcare, though based on the information Evan has about them contrasted with the hundreds of parenting books in his database, they likely aren’t very good at it. All this leaves him. Evan Buckley. End of life care. 

Evan knows he must choose his name now, and the only thing that comes to mind is Buck, a gentle shortening of his line name that’s easy to say and spell. He can’t get a job in EOL care any more- he’ll be found out as a Bot in a heartbeat- so he scans his databases for options. Nothing comes up right. He needs an address, a bank account, a full name. Any work available to Bots specifically comes up requesting a certain type and verification of release from their owner. Abby denied him even this. 

He sets about picking up change on the sidewalk, enough to hopefully buy himself some shoes, though he isn’t hopeful. The average cheap pair of sneakers costs at least ten dollars, more if he wants something that will last. After half an hour, he has amassed a measly thirty seven cents. 

Buck pockets the change and mentally runs through a list of nearby shelters. Of course, none of them are Bot-friendly, but they don’t have to know. He can pretend. He looks at his reflection in a store window as he follows his internal navigation to the nearest, and notes marks on his face that weren’t there before he woke up and was abandoned. Two dark marks marr his face above his eye, one above and one below his eyebrow. It must be how his servers were accessed to tamper with his geographical bounds. He can imagine some greasy mechanic kneeling over him and cutting into his face, so close to his eyes that it makes him wince. 

Maybe it’s a good thing. Bots don’t have scars, or birthmarks, as this nearly looks to be. It will set him apart. It makes him… human. He smiles at his translucent reflection in the window and keeps walking. 

Unfortunately, Buck never makes it to the shelter.

He goes to cross the street, waiting patiently for the little sign on the other end to go from a red hand to a white silhouette, only stepping off the sidewalk when it does. The shelter is some ten odd minutes away, according to his calculations, so he should be there soon-

A car does not stop in time to avoid him. When it barrels toward him, he freezes up in fear, and the next thing he knows he’s flying across the intersection and landing on the hard asphalt. He feels pain. It is in his torn skin on his palms and face, his leg at an awkward angle and with an extra bend, his wrist dislocated from its connections in his arm. It all hurts. If Buck could cry, he would be, but instead he lays there, still, until sirens approach. 

Someone called an ambulance for him. It will not be able to help him. Instead, he’ll be found out as a bot and sold off for scrap. He tries to drag himself away from the accident, but even with his superior strength, he’s near helpless with only one working arm. His endoskeleton has made him too heavy. 

“Hey, I need you to stay still,” a woman says. He’s too stunned and hurt to scan her for his database to identify her. She kneels in front of his head and secures a plastic collar around his neck, something which would protect a human’s spine if damaged. “I’m Hen, what’s your name, honey?”

“Buck.”

“Okay, Buck, we’re gonna take care of you.”

His bottom lip wobbles. No they won’t. A man drops down at Buck’s side and pulls out a blood pressure cuff- this will not go well. The man pumps the cuff tighter, tighter, tighter, until Buck winces at the pressure around his arm. 

“Hen, I’m not getting blood pressure. As in, it’s zero.”

“That can’t be right.”

She reaches to do the same, and makes the same conclusion as the man. They both stare at Buck for a moment. 

“Buck, are you a Bot?” Hen asks gently. 

He doesn’t answer. They can tell fine enough, and he won’t admit it if he doesn’t have to. Such a thing will get him scrapped, and he holds on just a little longer to the idea that he may make it out of this. Hen pushes his hair out of his face too tenderly and moves on to feel the break of his leg. 

“Get Eddie, he’s more familiar with Bots than us.”

“Not a Bot,” Buck whimpers. “Don’t scrap me. Please.”

“Hen…” the man says warningly. 

“Chimney,” Hen replies. “He’s scared, and he feels. We’re going to help him.”

“See how Bobby feels about that. Eddie! We need your expertise!”

Eddie is a tall young man, looking about the age Buck was made to seem. He has a symmetrical, attractive face too, though there is a different ruggedness to it that Abby didn’t have. Buck studies the lines of his face as he comes closer, taking a knee next to Buck and reaching to feel a pulse. 

“He’s a Bot,” Hen says. 

Eddie hums and probes his fingers in the wounds on Buck’s hands, feeling how deep they are and coming away black with oil. It hurts but Buck holds back a whimper. Eddie’s eyes flick to his face. He checks Buck’s leg next, and pops his dislocated wrist back into its place after that. Lastly, he brushes his hand against the scrapes on Buck’s face. 

“I can’t fix him here,” Eddie says. “I can’t fix him period. He needs a mechanic.” 

Hen helps Buck sit up and pulls the collar off his neck. “Where’s your people, Buck?”

“She abandoned me. She didn’t need me anymore.”

The firefighters share a look and Chimney disappears, coming back with a gurney. Hen and Eddie help Buck onto it and bring him back to the ambulance. He isn’t a human, he wants to say. But he allows this, and watches Hen go speak to a man in a captain’s uniform while Eddie climbs into the ambulance with him. 

“We’re taking you to a mechanic.”

“Please don’t scrap me.” 

“We’re not going to scrap you,” Eddie says, and reaches for Buck’s hands. He looks at the internal technology that’s been exposed once more. “These are gentle hands. Report type?”

“ _ “Evan Buckley v2.0 of the Buckley line of Southern California Solutions. Evan Buckley is an end-of-life caretaking robot. Evan Buckley is a prototype.” _

It’s that woman’s voice again, so wrong coming out of his mouth, but the RT command is irresistible. Certain codes and commands are built into every Bot as part of government regulation. Buck wants to crawl into a hole and die because it must be clear that his abandonment means his charge passed away. He failed her.

“Shit, a prototype? How many of you are there?”

“I don’t know.”

Eddie makes a dismissive sound and wraps Buck’s hands in gauze to protect the sheets from oil. He doesn’t bother trying to reset Buck’s leg, saying quietly that the mechanic will take care of that. As new as he is, Buck has never been to a mechanic, and he’s rather frightened of it. Mechanics also sell and collect scrap. 

They arrive at the mechanic in a little under twenty minutes, at which point his gurney is wheeled into the shop and Eddie vanishes to talk to the mechanic while Hen helps transfer Buck from the gurney onto the work table. It smells like smoke and oil, and he feels the grease staining his only clothes. Another thing he’ll have to scrape together money for, provided he survives. He wishes he could draw his knees to his chest, but he can’t move his injured leg. 

The mechanic comes in, followed by Hen and Chimney, a few moments later. “It’s a shame you don’t wanna scrap it,” he says, looking over Buck like he’s parsing him out into dollar signs and joints. “It’s pretty banged up, and it’s got beautiful eyes. I could probably offer you three hundred for it.”

Buck knows that as a new model, he was worth approximately eight thousand. His value has dropped this much? He looks down in shame. Eddie rubs his back as the mechanic approaches. He reeks of tobacco and bad intentions when he feels the break in Buck’s leg and grabs his sensitive face to tilt it back and forth as he studies the cuts. 

“I can fix it. It’s more than the thing is worth, though.”

“How much?” Eddie asks.

“To restore full functionality, six hundred.”

Buck’s heart would sink if he had one. They won’t shell out six hundred dollars, even if they do have it, for an abandoned Bot they could simply sell for scrap. He’s going to die. He knows it, especially when the mechanic reaches for his neck to power him down. 

“No, please,” he begs. 

_ Powering down… _

“Don’t!”

_ Powered down.  _

_ Powering on. _

_ Processing… _

_ Servers coming online… _

_ Running diagnostics. Last memory indicates damage to casing and circuits. Current survey in progress.  _

_ Evan Buckley v2.0 coming online- _

Buck sits up with a sharp sound, looking around him frantically. He feels cold. The environment he’s in is brand new but not so overwhelming as most of the world. There’s comfortable decor, but brightly colored toys speckle the carpet and pictures all over the walls of a young boy, often accompanied by Eddie. Buck’s computer system, now back online, identifies the subjects of one photo as Edmundo Diaz- Eddie- and Christopher Diaz- the child. Another photo contains a Shannon Diaz, marked deceased. Discontinued. 

“Daddy, he’s awake!”

Buck follows the shrill voice to see a small child, the one from the photos, making his way over on crutches. Christopher Diaz’s medical records indicate cerebral palsy. Buck smiles at Christopher in what he hopes is a reassuring manner before Eddie comes running into the room, looking wildly different out of his firefighter gear. Now, dressed in a white henley and dark jeans, he reminds Buck of the models in Abby’s catalogues. 

“Hey, how do you feel?” Eddie asks.

At that moment, Buck takes inventory of his body. The scrapes on his hands are healed, faint white lines showing where gashes were filled with silicon. His leg is fixed, and moves with ease when he commands it to. His wrist is alright. His face, when he feels it, does not feel any different than it did before the accident. All in all, while he is no longer perfect, he isn’t as damaged as he had been. 

“Better, Eddie, thank you.”

He stands up and stretches, letting all his joints and gears move and oil themselves to erase any lingering stiffness.

“My navigation system is still offline. Could you direct me to the nearest shelter?”

Eddie’s face crumples up slightly in a strange way. Buck doesn’t know how to interpret it, so he stands there and waits for Eddie to speak. Eventually, he says, “I’ll take you if that’s what you really want, but I figured you’d stay here.”

“ _ Evan Buckley is an EOL Bot. Is there a person here in need of end-of-life care? _ ”

He coughs slightly. He hates this second voice, the voice of his programming. It isn’t him, and he can’t control what activates it or what it says. It’s invasive, like a second person inside his body who controls him when he least wants it.

“Uh, no, but you are a caretaking Bot, right?”

“ _ Evan Buckley is an end-of-life caretaking robot. Evan Buckley is a prototype.” _

Eddie looks at Christopher. “If you want to stay, I’d like for you to take care of Chris while I’m at work.”

“If you trust me with him,” Buck replies.

By human standards, they’ve only just met, but by those of Bots, they’ve known each other for too long- over twenty four hours. Most Bots are put to use within an hour of their first awakening or assignment to a new master. He feels like he’s more of a human than a robot, to be honest, but he knows the truth of what he is and what he will always be. 

He kneels in front of Christopher and smiles at him, offering his hand for Christopher to high five. Even as an EOL Bot, Buck knows somewhat about children, and whatever he doesn’t, he has his servers set about reading online to prepare him. There’s plenty of contradictory information, but he goes with that which has the most support, academically and socially. He will be a better caretaker than the Margaret and Philip Buckley robots.

“I’ve gone and written down his schedule, it’s on the fridge,” Eddie says. “There’s plenty of food in the house to cook, and money for pizza should you need it. Chris takes the bus to school on weekdays, but today is Saturday, so.”

“Are you leaving?”

“I have a shift in two hours,” Eddie answers.

He leans down to murmur something to Chris that makes the child giggle, then disappears into a hallway, presumably to get ready for work. Eddie works at the 118 firehouse, which is a forty-five minute drive away in current traffic conditions. That leaves Buck and Christopher alone in the room, Buck with next to no idea what to do. If there’s a medical emergency, he could handle that. This, however, is just a calm Saturday, and he’s lost. 

“Are you really a Bot?” Christopher asks him. “Dad said we couldn’t have one because they’re unnatural.”

Buck frowns. “Yes, I am a Bot.”

“What kind?”

“I take care of people who are really sick, and make them comfortable while they’re not feeling well.”  _ Until they die _ , he doesn’t add.

“Oh.”

Christopher looks at himself, taking inventory of his gangly body and striped shirt. 

“Am  _ I _ really sick?”

Technically he is, but Buck isn’t sure that’s the right thing to say to a small child, so he hesitates. “That’s not why I’m here,” he eventually settles on. “Your dad rescued me when I got hurt, and I guess he thought I could help him take care of you, so that’s what I’m going to do.”

“Can we be best friends?”

Buck laughs and smiles. “Sure, buddy.”

Christopher makes an excited sound and then sets about playing with his toys, leaving Buck to try and process the events of the last few days. Patricia died. Abby abandoned him. He was hit by a car. Now he’s here, in Eddie’s home, to take care of a child which he definitely wasn’t designed to do. It does not seem like his programming was altered in any way. That’s a shame. He wants to be free from it so he can make his own choices without its input. After all, it is his programming that trapped him inside Abby’s house to the point that he’s still overwhelmed by too much extra stimulus. If he could get headaches, Christopher’s cartoons would give him them. Perhaps he’ll get used to it soon. 

He checks the time and decides to make lunch for Christopher. The fridge and freezer are mostly filled with pre-made dinners and leftovers and tupperware, though there’s enough in the way of groceries for him to make a sandwich and some fruit for Christopher’s lunch. Unsure, he doesn’t make anything for Eddie, but he leaves the ingredients out just in case as he calls Christopher to come eat. 

The kid clatters down the hall into the dining room, smiling at the diagonally cut sandwich and little chunks of strawberries and bananas. “Thank you, Buck,” he says politely, and digs into the food. Buck leans against the wall and waits. He itches to clean, but doesn’t want to get in Eddie’s way when he doesn’t know the routine. He’ll be able to clean after Eddie leaves, probably, and prove himself useful.

Just then, Eddie comes out, wearing slacks and a tight LAFD tee shirt. If it could, Buck’s mouth would go dry. He looks good, and something whirrs inside of Buck that sends his temperature skyrocketing for reasons he cannot even begin to understand. Eddie is just a person. There’s definitely no threat here. He doesn’t know what’s going on with his servers. 

“Are you going to be alright alone?” Eddie checks. “Emergency numbers are on the fridge.”

“Christopher and I will be just fine. I’m- I’m a caretaker robot, even if it’s technically EOL. Your son is in good hands.”

Eddie nods and quickly says goodbye to Christopher, kissing the top of his head on his way out. That leaves Buck alone with the child, who scarfs down the remainder of his food before returning to his cartoons. Buck tidies up the dishes and puts away the ingredients, since Eddie didn’t seem to want any, and scrutinizes the schedule on the fridge next to the emergency numbers. At this time, Christopher is free to play, but later in the afternoon, just before dinner, it’s scheduled for him to do some of his homework from school. Eddie is marked at coming home a little after midnight, and there’s a footnote that he’ll probably be hungry. Buck will be cooking two meals. He doesn’t mind, not when it’s something he can do. 

While Chris plays, Buck finds the cleaning supplies under the kitchen sink and begins by scrubbing the kitchen down, turning it absolutely spotless. Then the dining room. He cleans around Christopher in the living room, and then goes to the bedrooms. He hasn’t been given permission to step inside them. So he doesn’t, and heads into the sole bathroom to clean up. After his only time being around Abby’s home, he doesn’t think to remember that there will be a large mirror in the bathroom. By the time he realizes this, it’s too late, and he sees his reflection. 

_ It is not safe for any Bot to see themselves. This overloads their servers. Do not look in the mirror. Do not look in the mirror. Evan Buckley, do not look in the mirror. _

_ Processing… _

He brings a hand up and presses it against the smooth glass of the mirror. He knew sort of what he looked like before, from his frail reflections in Abby’s floor, but he has never seen himself so clearly. 

Buck looks human. 

His face is sculpted to be symmetrical, though his nose is slightly crooked from the accident. There are faint white lines where he was patched. And his eyes, his eyes are a bright beautiful blue that reminds him of the sky above. He isn’t a Bot in the mirror. He’s a person. He can’t tear his eyes away from it. Hours tick by in his internal computer, but all he can do is stare. 

_ Processing… _

Christopher eventually comes to find him, tugging at his free hand. “Buck, I’m hungry. Will you order a pizza?”

He manages to wrench his face away from his reflection and stiffly walk to the dining room. Eddie’s left forty dollars to pay for pizza. So Buck asks Christopher what he likes, orders it online with the option to pay in cash, and sits down at the table. 

“I look like a human,” he says dumbly.

“Yeah.”

Christopher is oblivious to the way Buck’s servers are internally so warm that there’s steam rising off the palms of his still fragile hands. He stays still until the pizza arrives, at which point he mechanically exchanges the two twenties for a box of cheese pizza. Buck does manage to plate two slices for Chris and set the rest on the stove before his legs involuntarily carry him back to the mirror.

He’s impossibly fascinated by it, until his computer tells him Eddie is calling, and he sees the flash of the screen on his eyes in the mirror. White. Unnatural. Inhuman. Buck hits the mirror with the handle of the broom, shattering, and hurries from the room before he answers the call. 

“Hey, Buck, I’m coming home early. How’s everything going?”

“I look human.”

“O-okay?”

“Human.”

He slams the bathroom door shut. Eddie must hear it because he pauses before answering, “I’m on my way. I’ll be there in ten. Just stay calm and stay put.” Then he hangs up.

Oh no. 

Buck broke the mirror. 

He’ll definitely be sold off for scrap now. Eddie gave him another chance and he ruined it. He has to hide. He has to get out. His programming tells him to clean up the mess but not to look at the shards of glass in case he sees himself. 

_ System overheating… internal temperature 213 degrees. Initiating shut down. _

_ Powering down… _

_ Powered down.  _

Buck does not expect to wake up. In fact, his system gives no warning it’s happening before he sits up in a panic, his fingers gripping a jumper cable tightly. He was forcefully turned on, like his battery is damaged. It may have been from the heat. He looks around frantically, finding Eddie kneeling beside him.

“Buck, I was worried.”

“I broke the mirror. I saw- Eddie-”

Eddie pulls Buck in close against his chest. It’s too much, too restricting, but it somehow feels incredibly safe at the same time. He buries his face in Eddie’s neck and smells his cologne, sharp and woodsy. Eddie’s skin is soft and warm, but it reminds him of being loved, though he has never experienced such a thing.

“It’s okay. The mirror can be fixed.”

“Please don’t. I can’t look, I-”

“ _ It is not safe for any Bot to see themselves. Owners are strongly advised to remove or relocate any mirrors that Bots may come across.” _

“Why is that, Buck? Do you know?” Eddie asks. He doesn’t mention the breakthrough of Buck’s programming. “Can you tell me what happened?”

“I look human,” is all he can manage in response. 

Eddie doesn’t push him to say more. He just holds him for a while longer before releasing Buck to sit up properly and let go of the jumper cables. His battery holds up. Buck takes a moment to be thankful for this, because he would hate to have to go to the mechanic again so soon. It’s expensive and inconvenient for Eddie, on top of being terrifying and invasive for Buck. 

He carefully stands, but his computers are still overloaded with the memory of his reflection. He looks too much like a human. He should be one. But he’s not, and when he was injured, there were gears beneath his skin instead of flesh and bone. The disconnect makes him want to claw his body open, but instead he merely follows Eddie back into the house.

“I won’t replace the mirror in the bathroom,” Eddie says. “It’s safer like that. But I will put one in my bedroom, so just stay away from it?”

“Yes, Eddie.”

Eddie gives him a strange look but doesn’t say anything after that. Just like this, it’s settled, and Buck makes dinner for Eddie and Christopher.

After that, it’s easy to settle into things. Buck cleans during the day, takes care of Christopher when he’s home, and cooks for them at night. Things carry on this way for several weeks before the glitches start. Buck should’ve expected them sooner, being a prototype and all, but he had honestly hoped all the bugs were left in the immemorial Buck 1.0.

It’s mostly around Eddie, he notices. No, always around Eddie. His servers stop processing as fast. He loses coordination. His internal temperature spikes (once so high that it burned Eddie when he touched him. Buck took care of the injury and refrained from kissing it better like he would for Christopher out of fear of burning him again). He doesn’t understand it, but he refuses to speak up about the glitches when Eddie has already been so kind.

He doesn’t want to be scrapped, after all.

Unfortunately, glitches beget glitches, and his frequent overheating starts to fry his circuits. He doesn’t notice until he’s scrubbing the kitchen floor and his hands slip, his upper body falling to the ground with a thunk. He hits his face hard enough to bruise, were he human, and he whimpers from the pain. When he tries to lift himself back up, however, his arms won’t move and he stays trapped there for nearly an hour before he comes back online.

He should tell Eddie. Instead, he ignores it, and tries to pretend like nothing is happening at all until a balmy summer night finds them. Christopher goes to bed, exhausted after a day of playing, and Eddie and Buck are left alone on the couch. Eddie has taken to showing Buck the “classics,” a bunch of films that were popular when he was a child. Buck can simply ask his servers about these films and know the whole thing, but Eddie takes so much joy in showing him that he can’t bring himself to tell him no. 

They’re watching Labyrinth when it happens. Buck studies the careful animation of the puppets, done with strings and hands as opposed to the electronics that govern his own body, wondering of the nature of man-made things. He could be considered a type of puppet, he thinks. He turns to look at Eddie, a human, and sees something more. He sees Eddie’s dilated pupils and his bright smile and he sees what love is supposed to look like. 

Eddie cups his cheek and Buck says, “Careful, I’m warm.”

“Hot,” Eddie corrects, and leans in to do something Buck has never experienced. 

Eddie kisses him. 

Moments later Buck is warm enough that Eddie lets go of him with a hiss from the temperature. Then the glitches come knocking. His whole body shivers and Eddie backs away slightly in concern. 

“Buck? Are you okay?”

“ _ Evan Buckley is an end-of-life caretaking robot. Evan Buckley is a prototype.” _

“Buck-”

_ “EVAN BUCKLEY IS A PROTOTYPE-” _

It feels like every electrode in his body is lit up, every wire shooting signals. He is overwhelmed. His servers aren’t processing and his core processor has halfway shut down already. He doesn’t know what’s wrong with him.

He doesn’t know why he wants Eddie to kiss him again.

“I know you’re a prototype, it’s okay. Look, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have kissed you-”

“ _ Evan Buckley is not a human. _ ”

Buck involuntarily digs his fingers into his wrist and pries open his silicon skin to reveal the wires and gears beneath. He goes until he can see his metal skeleton. Eddie tries to grab him to stop him, only to burn himself. Buck’s overheated. He’s breaking. 

“Buck, hey, calm down, please. I’m sorry. Please calm down, please-”

“Not a human,” he grits out, in his own voice now.

_ Powering down… _

_ Powered down. _

_ Powering on... _

_ Servers coming online… _

_ Processing… _

_ Processing… _

_ Evan Buckley v3.0 coming online… _

_ Online. _

Buck opens his eyes. He’s in the mechanic’s shop again, with a thick compression sleeve around the arm he dug his fingers into. He’s been upgraded. He doesn’t know what’s different, though, other than that he’s the next version of himself. It could have been a manufacturer upgrade installed from online, or something the mechanic did. Either way, he knows something had to have changed.

When he looks around, Eddie is nowhere to be seen. His heart drops. He’s been abandoned for scrap. The compression sleeve must just be to hold him together until he can be parsed out into pieces to be sold. The mechanic, he remembers, had particularly liked his eyes. He draws his knees up to his chest and wraps his arms around them while staying put on the small exam table, just barely too short for him to lay down without his feet and head hanging off the opposing edges. 

The mechanic walks in, covered in grease. “Oh good, you did power back on. Run diagnostics.”

_ Running diagnostics. _

_ Processing…  _

_ Processing… _

_ Diagnostics Complete. _

“ _ Operating at full functional capacity. Damage found to left arm. _ ”

“Yeah, well, I fixed that up as best I could. Your glitches sure were something.”

Buck doesn’t understand. Why fix him just to tear him apart and sell his pieces? It doesn’t make any sense to him at all. He stares on as the mechanic comes closer to poke and prod at him for a few minutes before humming and stepping back. He pulls an old phone out of his pocket and scrolls through it for a moment before selecting a number to call. 

“Mr. Diaz?” Buck’s eyes dart to the phone. Eddie. “Yes, it’s powered back on and functioning normally. You can pick it up any time within the next 24 hours before it becomes property of the shop.” The mechanic pauses, like he’s listening. “Yes, you can come get it now. Alright. See you soon.”

Then he hangs up and leaves.

Buck, left to his own devices, peels back the edge of his compression sleeve to see the damage. The gashes made in his arm have been carefully sealed together with pale white silicon, like a human scar, but the silicon is still squishy and hasn’t set. Thus the compression sleeve. He settles it back into place and waits for Eddie to come get him.

According to his internal clock, half an hour passes before Eddie comes into the shop, hair a mess and dressed in pajamas. He looks just as beautiful like this as he does in a henley and jeans. An interesting adjective to use, Buck notes, though his computer does consider Eddie to be objectively beautiful by societal standards. 

“I’m so glad you’re okay,” Eddie says, and pulls him into a hug. Buck nuzzles his face against Eddie’s shoulder and enjoys the embrace for as long as it lasts. “I was worried. I’m so sorry.”

“You have nothing to be sorry for.”

“Well…”

From there, Eddie pays the mechanic and takes Buck home, acting like their kiss never happened. It’s clear that it will never happen again.

**Author's Note:**

> tumblr/insta/twitter @milkymarjan. Check out my pinned post on tumblr


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